When you start something with "I question how genuinely accurate that is" then it's not unreasonable to think that the question concerns historical accuracy, ra

When you start something with "I question how genuinely accurate that is" then it's not unreasonable to think that the question concerns historical accuracy, rather than people's perceptions. I had never heard about the Pilgrims and beer thing. What we learned about was how Coca Cola used to contain cocaine. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Coca_.E2.80.93_cocaine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Coca_.E2.80.93_cocain... . "Coca-Cola once contained an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass". It still imports coca leaves for flavoring. I believe that is as well known as Pilgrims and their beer. While inaccurate, Google estimates 530,000 results for '"coca cola" cocaine' and 550,000 for 'pilgrims beer'. On a purely timing note, the phrase "Drug use _started_ as illegal" is difficult to justify. Why was the non-medicinal use of certain compounds banned before there were users of the drug? How did the legislature know to ban them before there were any observed social consequences? Only relatively recently has that been possible, as some proposed bans include "the sale of any chemical that might be used recreationally" and "any compound with any binding to any cannabinoid receptor" (quoted from http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002047 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour... ). I believe the UK also has laws regarding molecules which are "similar to" prohibited drugs. However, those are less than a generation old, and not part of people's perceptions.